DEBBIE WILLIAMS's Podcast
DEBBIE WILLIAMS's Podcast
Embracing Shyness - Finding Your Authentic Voice
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Sandra Mighty is a teacher, a senior leader in the education sector and a public speaker. She shares her inspiring journey of finding her voice through shyness. By embracing her innate shyness and embracing her unique qualities, she discovered a wellspring of confidence and authenticity within herself. Get ready to be inspired by her story as she takes us on her transformative path.
Links:
https://www.sandramighty.com
debbiewilliamspodcast.com
Welcome to Storytelling Rush. This week's guest is a teacher, a senior leader in the education sector, and a public speaker. She shares her inspiring journey of finding her voice through shyness. By embracing her innate shyness and embracing her unique qualities, she discovered a wellspring of confidence and authenticity within herself. Get ready to be inspired by her story as she takes us on her transformative path. Please welcome Sandra Mighty. Hello, Sandra, and welcome to the podcast. Hi Debbie, thank you so much for having me on your show. Sandra, I've known you for a long time and it's very hard to believe that you were once extraordinarily shy.
SPEAKER_01It's quite interesting because a lot of people, when I say to them I was really shy, they look at me like, what you? No way. Because of what I currently do.
SPEAKER_00So tell me more about your childhood.
SPEAKER_01So as you mentioned before, I was really, really shy growing up. I don't even know why I was shy, but I was just incredibly shy to the point where I actually felt I had an illness. And I remember seeing a newspaper report and it had in it, Are You Shy? And I remember cutting out this newspaper report because you could get a book to do with shyness. I posted it and every day kept looking in the post for this little tiny book because I thought there's something wrong with me. When I was in a conversation, I was actually always trying to figure out how I was going to answer the person who I was speaking to. I was never in the moment, I was always in my head, and I was literally terrified of just speaking to people generally, of looking them in the eye, and just of holding a conversation. Friends that I knew then from years back, they can't believe that right now I am currently a presentation skills coach because they said, but you never used to speak. And so that was how terrible it was. It was so bad that I actually used to feel like I was a bird in a cage that was trapped and wanting to get out.
SPEAKER_00So, what was the turnaround for you? When did you find your voice?
SPEAKER_01Well, it got to a point where a friend introduced me to an author, it was Dr. Miles Monroe at the time, and he'd written two books. One was called Understanding Your Potential, and the other one was Releasing Your Potential. And I remember reading those books and they challenged me. Why did they challenge me? Because I realized that I had very limiting beliefs about myself. I actually called myself shy. It was comfortable for me to call myself shy. That was my, I don't even know if I want to call it an excuse, but that was the title I gave myself. And when I was reading this particular book, or both of the books, it basically challenged me in the sense that it challenged my limiting beliefs. And the books were basically telling me that I had great potential and that I could do anything that I put my mind to. And that started me on a journey, and I'm still on that journey of personal development, and became so passionate about my own personal growth, about my mindset, and just about how I can be the best that I can be. And so that was basically the turning point for me. The more I exposed myself to great speakers, to transformational people, the more my mindset began to change. And there is a saying that says that change your thoughts, then you will change your world. And that is exactly what happened to me. I was so inspired by people as well, like Brian Tracy, there was Miles Monroe, as I mentioned before, people like Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins. There were so many of them that I started to just listen to them on a daily basis. And then there came a point in my life where I recognized that I wasn't alone in the way I was as a young person, that there were many other people who were similar to me. But by this time, I had exposure to, I'd say, truth of who I really was. And as a result of that transforming my lives, it birthed a desire in me to want to be a motivational speaker. I wanted to transform and inspire people. And so that led me on a journey to developing my own speaking and going on then to train other people on how to find their voice, how to speak, how to inspire other people. I ended up landing a position within an organization as a presentation skills coach. And there I trained over 1,000 people in the area of public speaking. And I think the real turning point, or the eye-opener, shall I say, for me, was that we had received training from the organization, but it wasn't necessarily on training to tell your story. But I remember one day running an event, there was about 70 people in the room, and I thought to myself, I'm going to share my story for this training. Bear in mind I was delivering the same training to a range of different people, but on this occasion, I decided that I'm going to share my story. I'm going to share my story of how I was shy and how I overcame. And then when I finished the training, I remember reading my evaluation forms, and people had written, if Sandra can do it, I can do it too. Now bearing in mind that prior to that, speaking for me was an ordeal. I used to hide away and shy away, and I shared my story about how I ran out of church building and hid in the car because I didn't want to speak. But now I was actually impacting and sharing the story and making a difference in people's lives. And that for me was an eye-opener into the fact that when we tell our stories, we can actually help other people to rewrite their own.
SPEAKER_00So, Sandra, I want to go back to that moment when you ran out of the church building because at the time you were a member of the choir. Yeah. Everyone thought because you were on stage that you would be confident enough to talk in front of a group of people. And that wasn't the case.
SPEAKER_01That was not the case at all. I was on that stage and I would sing, and that was fine. There was quite a few of us, so I could be lost in the crowd. I didn't look people in the eye when I was on stage. I remember a mic stand actually falling, and it seemed like it was falling in slow motion, and I was too afraid to actually reach out and stop the mic stand from falling. So I let it fall to the ground. That's how terrified I was at the time of speaking. And so you're absolutely right. I was singing in the choir, and so I think as a result of singing, people may have thought she's quite confident, not realizing that there was a lot of anxiety around speaking, that there was a lot of fear going on inside of me. And so, as I mentioned to you before, I remember there was one particular time when I was supposed to, it wasn't me, it was someone else who was supposed to have started the meeting, but they hadn't turned up. The meeting hadn't started, it was due to start at 8, it was 10 to 8. And then someone came to me and he said, Oh no, she's not here. You're gonna have to start the meeting. You can imagine the heat that rose up in my head, the heart beating, and just how I felt inside. Obviously, they thought they were just giving a comment and probably thinking I'm gonna do the job well, but to me, I just thought I can't do it. And so when they were not in view, I literally, instead of walking towards the stage, I walked out of the church building and I went into my car. And had it not been for my mum still being in the meeting and the fact that I would be dropping her home, I would have driven home. But I sat in my car creaming my hands and my legs, giving me something to do, and kept repeating, I am not going to do it. And that was because, not so much because I was being stubborn, it was because I was afraid.
SPEAKER_00Sandra, if you could go back, what would you say to your younger self now?
SPEAKER_01I would actually tell my younger self, number one, change your thoughts, and you will change your world. One of the ways that you can do that is expose yourself to great speakers, to great thinkers, to people who are motivational and transformational. Read books that are going to elevate your thinking and cause you to rise above mediocre thinking. Read books that are going to be telling you the truth about yourself, that you are powerful beyond measure, and that you can do anything that you put your mind to. Secondly, I will tell myself that if you have a dream, take the steps that you need to take in order to make that dream happen. If you have a desire to speak, but you feel that you cannot, put yourself under coaches, do the training that you need to enable you to reach your potential and to do the things that you want to do. And that may mean you may feel afraid, you may feel nervous, but hold that vision in your head that one day you're going to be a great speaker. Hold that vision in your head that you can do it and you will do it. And that if there's any lie, and I call them lies, the deliberating lies that are telling you to give up, that your voice doesn't matter, and who wants to listen to you, recognize that they are lies. There's a part of our mind that wants to keep us safe, wants to keep us protected, wants to keep us in your comfort zone. Recognize that those voices do not help you. And the third thing I want to say is reframe the way that you think. And that might mean every day reminding yourself of who you really are. Reminding yourself that your voice matters, that you have a story to tell that can actually transform lives and can actually change the course of other people's lives. Remind yourself that no one has ever walked in your shoes, that no one has experienced the things that you've experienced, and the very fact that you have walked your own journey, you have something to give. And that means that telling your story, being authentic and being real and telling your story, and that takes courage, can actually change the trajectory of someone else's life.
SPEAKER_00Sandra, lovely advice, and I just want to thank you for being a guest on this podcast.
SPEAKER_01Debbie, thank you so much. You're doing a brilliant job, and it's been a pleasure speaking on your podcast.
SPEAKER_00If you would like further details about Sandra, then please follow the link in the show notes.